Thirteen Weeks
by Trekkie101
Summary: Baby!fic. Unintentionally long, fluffy, one shot. Mainly a diversion from the angst being produced by the season finale. Set somewhere in the realm of post-Rizzoli parent divorce, pre-Papa Rizzoli moves to Florida.


**Thirteen Weeks**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Rizzoli and Isles, including the book and the TNT show; Jane Rizzoli belongs to Tess Gerritsen and Angie Harmon, and Maura Isles belongs to Tess Gerritsen and Sasha Alexander. The plot for this story is my own, but that is all I could or would stake claim to. Leave feedback if you wish; these girls are delectable, and my muse would appreciate your affirmation!**

**Synopsis: Unintentionally long fluff spawned by unsuccessful ff . net searches for baby stories. (There must be more!) Mainly a diversion from the angst being produced by the season finale, and set somewhere in the realm of post-Rizzoli parent divorce, pre-Papa Rizzoli moves to Florida. Rated T due to snogging, mostly, and some cursing. ;)**

Google was quickly becoming Jane's best friend. It wasn't that Maura's usual verbosity had diminished at all, but Jane now needed information she couldn't get from her wife. Serious information. For the umpteenth time, Jane thanked the powers that be for her iPhone's voice recorder and the invention of Google.

"Jane, are you _listening_ to your phone?" Frost's voice cut through the recording and Jane jumped, hastily hitting the pause button and ripping her ear buds from her ears.

"So what if I am? It's not like we've got a case, is it?" Frost held his hands up in surrender and settled into his seat.

"Sorry, man. Just wonderin' what was up with the headphones." Jane waved at him and replaced the ear buds.

"Sorry, I'm being a jerk. I'll stop soon." Frost chuckled but wisely held back any retort, leaving Jane to her research. Pressing the play button, she squinted as she attempted to reason out the spelling of amniocentesis.

. . .

"Jane, love? Is that you?" Maura set her glass of white cranberry juice on the ledge by the tub and rested her head back against the bath pillow propped against the wall.

"Yeah," the brunette responded, sticking her head in the bathroom door and grinning at her wife. "Just tripped over Jo Friday on the way in. You need anything?"

"Company?" Jane quirked an eyebrow and Maura rolled her eyes. "Yes, I mean it. Get in here." Jane shrugged and entered the bathroom more fully, closing the door to prevent any canine or testudinae interruptions. Stripping her clothes from her body and not caring that they ended up in a pile on the floor, Jane pulled her hair up into a quick twist and moved towards the tub.

"Sorry, I just didn't think you, uh, wanted to, um…"

"Get naked in our whirlpool tub together?" Maura chuckled and moved forward in the tub so her wife could settle into the steaming water behind her.

"Yep." That morning, Jane had stepped into the shower with Maura only to be met with a stony face and instructions to wait her own damn turn.

"I'm pregnant, Jane. Indecision is a likely state of being for the next twenty six weeks." Jane sighed deeply as the heat of the water shot straight through her body and warmed her instantly, then slid her arms around Maura's waist and pulled her tightly into her chest.

"Right," she responded simply as if she were filing the information away for future reference.

"I am sorry," the blonde in her arms said quietly after a few seconds. Jane pressed a slow, warm kiss to the back of her head and lifted her right leg to hook it over Maura's.

"Don't be sorry. You got the crappy end of the deal in this situation, babe. You can be as indecisive as you like." Jane moved one of her hands down to the swelling evidence of their child's growth and Maura felt tears spring to the back of her eyes at the feeling of long, capable fingers gently holding her.

"It's not the crappy end of the deal, Jane. You know that I wanted to do this very much." Maura shifted back into Jane's embrace, enjoying the feel of her lover's skin against hers in the steam of the bathroom.

"Yeah, and you're amazing for it."

"No more amazing than you are for being here, Jane." Maura felt her wife's lips curve into a small smile against the side of her head.

"I love you," Jane murmured quietly, not moving her lips from the edge of Maura's hair.

"Mmm, love you, too."

. . .

"I mean, I have _no idea_ what _half_ the stuff they say even means, let alone what I think about it. And meanwhile she's throwing up at the smell of popcorn and crying because her fountain pen ran out of ink, and I'm just sitting on my ass watching baseball." Jane's hands, in their normal Italian fashion, gestured wildly around her, made only slightly more dangerous by the metal wrench she was holding. From his position deep inside a kitchen cabinet, Frank Rizzoli chuckled.

"Gimme the u-turn, Janie." The brunette in question handed her father a piece of steel pipe and continued her rant.

"I downloaded this app into my phone so I can record the visits to the OB with Maura knowing, but it takes me like three and a half hours to figure out what everything means."

"Why don't you just ask the OB while you're there, Janie?" Frank uncurled himself from beneath the sink and arched an eyebrow at his eldest child in a mirror image of her favorite facial expression. Jane shrugged and looked embarrassed before handing her father the wrench.

"I don't know, I mean… It's not like Maura doesn't already know she's smarter than me. I just…" Frank watched his daughter carefully, turning the wrench over in his fingers. "I don't want to remind her, I guess." For a minute they sat in a comfortable silence, something Jane could always count on when she went to visit her father.

"The Doc's a pretty smart woman," Frank said at last, making Jane nod her head with a rueful smile.

"Yeah, you could say that."

"Don't think she married an idiot." Jane glanced up to meet her father's gaze, ready to protest, but he continued. "'specially an idiot who coulda gone to BCU." Jane's eyes widened.

"You knew about that?" Frank laughed.

"I know everything about my children, Janie. Even when they don't think so."

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" This time, Frank shrugged.

"Because you had to decide what you wanted. You've always been independent, Janie. I couldn't make you go if you didn't think it was the right thing to do." Jane nodded, knowing the truth in her father's words. "But this isn't about you not having a college degree." Frank returned to his position under the sink and set about tightening the pipe into place. Jane was quiet for a while.

"No, I guess not." When Frank finished with the pipe, he pulled himself from the cabinet and began gathering his tools. Jane replaced the cleaning solutions which they had pulled from under the counter and followed her father out into the garage.

"You know, Janie, when your brother Frankie was two years old, he kept your Ma and I up every night because he swore there was a zombie in his closet who would eat him. Tommy refused to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for six years because he said that jelly made monsters hungry. But you? You've never been afraid of anything in your whole life. I shouldn't like to think you're startin' now." Jane chuckled and leaned against the side of his truck.

"I was afraid Ma would kill me when she found out I joined the Academy." Frank laughed.

"Your Ma is a whole 'nother ball game, Janie." Frank pulled his daughter into an embrace and held on for several seconds, his eyes closed as he cherished the chance to hug his little girl.

"I love you, Daddy." Jane kissed her father's cheek and watched as he climbed into his truck.

"I love you, too, Janie. Tell the Doc I said, hi, will ya?" Jane nodded and patted the hood of his truck as he backed it out of her garage.

. . .

Jane was showering when Maura got home from work, so the blonde toed off her shoes by the front door and checked on Bass and Jo Friday to make sure their water bowls had been filled. They, of course, had been. Since her pregnancy had been confirmed eleven weeks prior, Jane had become obsessed with making sure she did everything around the house. Dishes were washed almost the instant they touched the bottom of the sink, the pets were fed, washed, and walked before she woke up or got home every day, and she'd discovered that Jane had actually paid attention to her lessons in laundry care for expensive clothing, though for the first several years of their relationship, she had pretended not to. Maura found it sweet initially, but after the discoveries she'd made today, she wasn't so sure.

"Hey, you're home." Jane, clad in a pair of flannel pajama pants, a black tank top, and a bra, her hair still dripping in dark ringlets around her face, pressed a kiss to Maura's face and moved to retrieve a water bottle from the fridge.

"I am," Maura responded, trying to keep her voice calm. "You left your phone at work." Jane turned, surprised, and a look of nervousness passed briefly over her face.

"I did? Shit, Maura, did you need something? You coulda called here." Jane reached out for the phone in Maura's hand, but her wife didn't relinquish it.

"No, I wouldn't say I needed something. Barry brought it down to me as I was leaving. He said you'd left it on your desk."

"Okay?" Jane's hand fell to her side.

"I unlocked it with the intention of changing your ringtone again." At this, both women couldn't help but smile slightly, remembering their running competition to create the most ridiculous list of ringtones. "Instead, I stumbled, quite accidently, upon a recording of my voice." Jane's face fell. Turning away from Maura, Jane chugged from her water bottle and moved in the living room. "Jane, why did you record the OB appointment from last week?" Jane didn't answer at first, and Maura walked over to her wife, the incriminating phone clutched in her hand. Slipping it into the pocket of the brunette's pjs, Maura stood close to her wife, trying to meet her gaze as it wandered around the living room. "Jane?"

"Leave it alone, Maura." Jane started to walk away again but Maura caught her wrist.

"No." Her voice was quiet, and her grip on Jane's wrist was loose, but the detective stayed where she was. "No, I won't leave it alone."

"Why?" Jane finally looked down and met Maura's gaze.

"Because I think the reason you recorded that appointment is the same reason you've been doing laundry and reminding my technicians about which chemicals I'm not allowed to work with. The same reason there are three books in your bedside drawer under your gun case, and the same reason you've been watching me sleep." Maura lifted her free hand to Jane's face and slid it over a defined cheekbone into thick hair. "And I would like to know why."

Jane leaned down and pulled her wife into a deep kiss, her eyes drifting shut as she let herself fall into a mouth and body which felt like coming home. Maura let herself lean into Jane, the swell of their child pressing warmly against Jane's abs, and the brunette slid her hands around her lower back to support her.

"I promise I delete the recordings once I'm done with them, Maur. No one else will hear them, okay?" Jane pulled away from the embrace and moved back to the kitchen where she deposited her empty water bottle in the recycling bin. Maura remained in the living room for a few moments, feeling bereft, before following her wife.

"That is decidedly not the point here." Maura was angry now, although she wasn't entirely sure why.

"Then what is the point, Maura? I'm sorry I left my phone at work and I'm sorry you're creeped out by the recording. It'll be gone tomorrow." Jane's hands were swinging wildly now and Maura took a few seconds to compose herself before answering.

"Look, I didn't intend for this to be an argument. I don't care that you recorded the OB appointment, and I don't care if you delete it or not. Broadcast it for the whole department to hear about my vagina, whatever. I would, however, like to know why you did it in the first place and why you're being so god damn evasive about it now." By the time Maura had worked herself into the rant, Jane knew she was in trouble. Once her wife began pacing, the detective figured she'd earned at least two nights on the couch, with a possible third if she didn't handle the next few minutes correctly.

"Okay, okay. I'll tell you. Just, calm down, will ya? All of this," Jane waved her hand at Maura's tense and pacing body, "is not the kind of 'reducing your stress' the OB had in mind." Maura whirled around and planted her hands on her hips.

"So, you recorded the appointment just so you could quote the instructions at me? You think I don't already know that I have to cut down on my hours and stop drinking coffee. You think I don't know that fighting with you is not what I should be doing right now! You think I don't know—"

"I know you know!" Jane's voice thundered over Maura's and shocked them both into silence. Maura blinked and found tears already leaking from her eyes. Jane swung around and planted her hands on the edge of the kitchen sink.

"Fucking dammit. I'm sorry for yelling." Behind her, Maura took a deep breath and valiantly tried to hide a sniffle. She failed, of course, and Jane's eyes closed in frustration with herself. "I'm sorry."

"I don't understand." The little girl voice Jane hated the most, the one she had heard the first time Maura told her about Hoyt and boarding school, and the same one she heard whenever Maura's father called to offer more condescension to his daughter, was evident beneath the strain of keeping tears at bay and Jane cursed herself again before turning back to her wife.

"I know you know, Maura. I know that you know all about this kid and this process, and you can go to these appointments and see our kid on that ridiculous, fuzzy little screen and know what the hell the doctor's talking about when she says we have to decide whether we want to have an amniocentesis performed. I get it. I got it the first time we went to one of those things and she started tossing around the names of vitamins and shit that I couldn't find anywhere at Wal-mart only to come home and find you'd already ordered them. I get it. You get it, I get it, hell, the OB probably gets it which is why she just talks to you and I just pray my iPhone doesn't die in the middle of it. So, no, I don't want to talk about the recording. I don't want to talk about the books, or the Googling, or the recording, because in ten years this kid is gonna ask you about when you were pregnant and I'd like them not to find out that one of their mothers is a dumb fuck who didn't have anything to do with it." Jane's voice had gone quiet, and her gaze didn't leave Maura's shocked face until she felt she'd said her piece. Then she moved to the archway leading from the kitchen and paused. "I need to walk Jo and the crib we ordered is ready for pick up at the store. I'll be back in a little while."

. . .

Maura had intended to clean herself up before Jane got home so they could talk about what had transpired, but thirty five minutes of crying easily wiped her overtired body out. She fell asleep in the middle of their bed, her hands clutching Jane's black tank top and her body curled up around their child. Finding her wife, tears tracks dried onto her perfect face, asleep on top of the covers simply added to Jane's current self-hatred, of course, and she pulled the blanket up over her as tenderly as possible.

"I'm so sorry," the brunette whispered, pressing a slow kiss to her temple and brushing back several strands of hair which had become stuck to her face. Moving silently back out of their bedroom, Jane walked back down the hall and into the room they had designated as the nursery three weeks prior. She and Frankie had hefted the extra packing boxes left over from when Jane had moved in up to the attic, and they'd removed the old carpet to make room for a soft, plush carpet in a sweet, creamy tan. The walls had been painted as well, with Maura's pick of Disney's "Butterfly Flutter By," a pale, blue-lavender. Now, a large box containing the pieces of what would eventually be a crib sat in the middle of the otherwise empty room. Jane sighed and settled onto the floor, picking up the box cutter and beginning what she figured would be a long night's work.

By the time Maura awoke two hours later, the crib was almost assembled. Finding the blanket pulled up to her chin but her wife not in bed, Maura rinsed her face quickly in the sink and crept down the hallway towards the only other lit room in the house. Leaning soundlessly against the doorway, the blonde watched as Jane tiredly tightened four bolts on the top corners of the crib, then tested the four sides for stability.

"It looks even better than it did in the magazines." Jane spun around at the sound of Maura's voice, then her shoulders slumped down in defeat.

"I'm sorry I woke you up. I tried to be quiet." She turned back to the crib and tightened several more screws so they sat more fully into the light wood.

"You didn't wake me up. I did miss you in bed though." Jane paused almost imperceptibly.

"The woman at the store claims the order with the two shelves and the matching dresser will be here by Thursday but I'm not inclined to take her word for it, honestly." Maura chuckled lightly and moved further into the room.

"I agree." Taking advantage of Jane's position by the crib, Maura slid her hands around her wife's waist and pressed the length of her body against Jane's back. When she took a hold of the crib's railing, Jane was trapped, and although Maura's hold was not strong, she knew the brunette would not attempt to break away. The danger and strength which were ever-present in Detective Rizzoli, simmering near the surface at all times, seemed to drain from her body the moment her gun was locked away at home, a fact for which Maura was profoundly grateful. "Thank you for putting it together. It looks wonderful." Jane let out a breathy snort which was almost a chuckle and shook her head.

"It's not exactly hand made. I just followed the directions." Maura pressed a kiss between Jane's shoulder blades and contemplated her next words.

"In five and a half years, you're going to be doing this exact thing with a bicycle, in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve." Jane was quiet, so Maura continued. "I'm going to take one look at the incomprehensible diagrams and little baggies of bolts and decide it's a perfectly good time to refurbish my pedicure, but you'll have it put together in almost no time. Our kids will run down the stairs Christmas morning and there will be crumbs on a plate for Santa, a tree with the lights left on all night, and this perfect, amazing, bright red bicycle that wasn't there the night before."

"Are these kids allowed to tear the wrapping paper off and leave it on the floor?" Jane's light teasing eased the tension in Maura's shoulders and she giggled.

"Yes, but only on very special occasions like Christmas." Jane rested her hands lightly on top of Maura's, then pushed her away just enough to turn around in her arms. Cupping the blonde's face in her hands, Jane searched her wife's eyes.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you, Maur. And, I'm sorry I left. I hate that you were crying and I wasn't here." Maura reached up and grasped Jane's hands in her own.

"Don't apologize, Jane. I was being ridiculous, and, well… I was only crying because I've been so stupid." Jane's eyes widened.

"What? No, you haven't been stupid at all! You can be mad at me about whatever you want to be mad at me about." Maura smiled sadly at her wife and slipped her hands up around the back of Jane's neck.

"Oh, but I have been rather oblivious, haven't I?" Jane's hands fell automatically to the small of Maura's back, and her long fingers began to massage the tense muscles there. "You should have told me you didn't understand what we were talking about at the OB appointments. You know you are not unintelligent, Jane."

"Yeah, totally. I can spot a mugger in a grainy piece of hotel camera film and reload a Glock 19 in thirty five seconds. Definitely genius material." Maura shook her head and threaded the fingers of one hand into Jane's hair.

"Stop. We can't both be self-deprecating at once." Jane chuckled and pressed her lips against Maura's temple.

"I can tell you that you are a smart, successful, capable woman until I run out of ways to say it, Jane, but you won't believe me until you believe it of yourself." Maura's words, unintentionally echoing her father's sentiment that day, made Jane smile ruefully and nod.

"I'm sorry. It's not just the OB." Maura let Jane's words hang between then, knowing the brunette usually required time to say what she needed to say. "It's more than just the OB. It's spelling bees and calculus homework and applying to Harvard. I don't know. It doesn't make any sense when I say it out loud." Maura reached up and pulled her wife into a kiss, her body warming from the inside out as it always did when she felt Jane's lips against hers.

"It makes sense to me. It's the same way I feel about sleepovers and boyfriends and applying to Harvard. I was a weird kid, Jane. And I don't want this baby to go through half of what I went through because I was weird." Jane started to protest, but Maura kissed her again instead. "This child is going to adore you and you are going to be the most amazing mother anyone could ask for. I know, because you fixed me, Jane."

"You didn't need fixing." Jane's reply was automatic and vehement, punctuated by a tightening of her arms around Maura.

"See?" Maura grinned, her eyes glittering with delight, and kissed her wife again. Jane grunted, but couldn't keep from smiling, herself. Maura ran her hands down Jane's arms and pulled Jane's left hand from behind her back. Pressing the scarred palm against the growing "baby bump" just above her pelvis, she let herself watch their hands against their child. "Right now, the baby is thirteen weeks old. It's about the size of my fist, and its head is half of its whole length." Jane laughed.

"That's my kid, already. Giant head and even more giant hair." Maura giggled.

"Well, he or she doesn't have hair yet, but its bones are solidifying and it now has a larynx. Vocal chords." Jane nodded quickly, her face a picture of concentration as their hands rose and fell with Maura's breathing. For a little while, both women were content to stand in the middle of the unfinished nursery, Maura with one hand curled around the back of Jane's neck and Jane with one hand pressing warmly against her back, their foreheads pressed together lightly.

"I don't think we should have the amniocentesis scheduled." Jane's voice was exceptionally quiet.

"Okay." At the lack of a discussion from her wife, Jane pulled back slightly, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Really?" Maura tilted her head to one side and regarded the brunette.

"Yes, really. Do you want me to argue for it?" Jane shook her head, but her face read confusion.

"No, I mean, I don't think we should have it done. I just expected you to disagree."

"Jane, at this point, you've done more research about it than I have. If you don't think we should schedule the procedure, then we won't." Jane barely hid the stunned look which passed over her face.

"Right. Yeah, okay. Good." Maura giggled again and kissed her utterly adorable wife.

"I love you, Jane." The smile Maura received in return for her words took her breath away, as it had many times before. If Jane never stopped looking at her this way for the rest of her life, she would be the luckiest woman in the world.

"I love you, too."


End file.
